This case is about the safety problems faced by BP, the third-largest oil and gas producer in the world. On March 23, 2005, an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery resulted in one of the most serious workplace accidents in the US. An investigation by The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) uncovered many safety lapses at the Texas City refinery. BP was accused of endangering its workers by compromising on process safety due to its high emphasis on cost cutting. The Texas accident was not the only safety lapse at BP. In March 2006, a large oil spill was discovered due to a corroded pipeline at BP's Prudhoe Bay refinery in Alaska, USA. Critics alleged that BP had put profits before safety. BP was also criticized for spending millions of dollars to project a 'green' and 'environment-friendly' image, while failing to take care of basic operational safety issues. BP surprised many when it announced that its CEO, Lord Robert Browne would step down by end of July 2007, which was earlier than scheduled retirement in 2008. It also announced that Tony Hayward, the head of BP's exploration and production, would succeed Browne.

On January 16, 2007, the BP US Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel issued its report on its review of safety issues in BP Plc.'s (BP) refineries in the US. BP, the world's third-largest oil and gas producer after Exxon Mobil Corp. ExxonMobil and Shell, had been plagued by safety lapses in its facilities in the last couple of years. The panel was formed in October 2005, after The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) had uncovered many safety lapses at BP's Texas City refinery during the investigation of an explosion that occurred on March 23, 2005, which had resulted in 15 deaths and 170 people being injured. CSB said that BP might have endangered its workers by compromising on process safety and because of its emphasis on cost cutting. The Texas...

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...estimates put the amount of oil that was being discharged from the broken well at above 1,470,000 U.S. gallons per day. On July 15, 2010 BP successfully stopped the flow of oil from the wellhead, after spilling 190 million gallons of oil into the gulf over a period of three months.
BP’s initial response to the spill was to deny responsibility. Tony Hayward, CEO, tried to shift the blame of the accident to Transocean. Transocean owned the rig BP was the Lessee. Weeks later, when BP gave the details of it’s own investigation into the accident they admitted some liability.
Ethically, the damage is done. Eleven deaths and over one million gallons of oil spilling per day and BP tried to duck responsibility. This lack in corporate social responsibility impacted the stakeholders, and had a huge negative impact on BP.
BP has a long history of legal and ethical violations. Over the past twenty years, BP subsidiaries have been convicted three times of environmental crimes in Alaska and Texas including two felonies. The company is still on probation for two of them. The company also received the largest fine ever for willful work safety violations in United States history. This shows BP’s lack of legal responsibility.
While BP has said it accepts responsibility for the spill, it denies that it is guilty of safety and environmental failures.
The...

... 1) BP PLC- Background detail of the Multinational Corporation
BP (Plc.) is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom. It boasts of an extensive service market with operations in more than 80 countries in all parts of the world and nearly 90,000 employees that form its increasing human resource base. It has grown since its inception in 1909 to become one of the world's leading oil companies on the basis of market capitalisation and proven reserves. Its main businesses are Exploration and Production, Refining and Marketing, and Chemicals. Exploration and Production's activities include oil and natural gas exploration and field development and production, together with pipeline transportation, natural gas processing and gas and power marketing. The activities of Refining and Marketing include oil supply and trading as well as refining and marketing. Chemicals activities include petrochemicals manufacturing and marketing. In addition, the Company has a solar energy business which is one of the world's largest manufacturers of photovoltaic modules and systems.
BP is one of the world's leading oil companies on the basis of market capitalisation and proven reserves. Its main businesses are Exploration and Production, Refining and Marketing, and Chemicals. Exploration and Production's activities include oil and natural gas exploration and field development and production, together...

...Business Management Ethics Issue at Bp
Name:
Date:
Class:
Professor:
MANAGEMENT ETHICS AT BP
Abstract
Beyond Petroleum, BP is among the largest Oil and other energy companies in the world. Its targets and confidence in the market has enabled it reduce Carbone dioxide waste and enhance alternative sources of energy like solar power. This upward success has, however, in the recent past been challenged. BP’s environmental image in the globe has been tarnished due to accidents and ethical issues it faces. Its actions are argumentative based on the facts and the rational thing that ought to be done at the time of the incidents. Looking at its business norms and the theoretical standpoints that contrast, therefore, paves way for arguments on the ethics of its business practices.
Business Management Ethics Issue at BPBP is currently being heavily scrutinized due to its history of ethical and legal violations that law enforcers, critiques and members of congress have ascertained. The London based oil company has a tendency of putting profits ahead of anything else. Its subsidiaries over the past two decades have had two felonies, including a conviction three times of crimes against the environment in Alaska and Texas. In the U.S history, it is the company with the highest fine levied...

...in countries where farmers are less informed and more likely to misuse pesticides or not fully understand the benefits of crop rotation.
BP:
Q1. What aspects of BP’s ethical culture could have contributed to the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster?
The past behavior, specifically concerning the 2005 explosion in Texas and the Alaskan Pipeline leaks in 2006 show a general disregard for safety and the ability or desire to quickly respond to maintenance issues that had the ability to prevent these disasters. Corporate policies and managements focus of safety did not appear to be at the top of the corporate culture.
Q2. Did BP engage in purposeful avoidance of risk management? Why or why not?
It appears that BP avoided both mandated and voluntary practices in dealing with risk management practices. The lesser of the violation would be the voluntary violations like not having a remote shut-off to close a well off in the event of a catastrophic disaster. The mandated boundaries that were broken are the most disturbing. In the Texas case, BP admitted to several procedure failures and in the Alaskan Pipeline case, there were simple recommended preventative procedures that would have prevented the accident. In the Deepwater case, there are accusations made by a employee of the rig company to serious violations.
Q3. What should BP do in the future to rebuild its reputation and manage the risks...

...﻿When determining the status of morality there is three different options. Morality may be the different between objectives, relativistic, or it may be a complex set of rules. Moral nihilists are like relativists by denying ethical objectivism however, relativists believe in moral goodness, duty and virtue and nihilists don’t. Error theorists and expressivism are both forms of moral nihilism. Error theorists believe “our moral judgments are always mistaken”. Expressivists don’t agree and also deny that our moral claims can ever offer an accurate take on reality. (307)
Error theory and expressivism are two forms of moral nihilism. Error theorists believe “our moral judgments are always mistaken”. (307) While expressivists deny those beliefs and deny, “that our moral claims can never offer an accurate take on reality”. (307) The error theory is made of three doubts/claims.
The first is “there are no moral features in this world”. Error theorists believe that nothing is morally good or bad, or right and wrong. Exemplified in the book many scientific qualities in the world (liquids, being three feet long, carbon based chemicals) but none of them contain moral features. The next doubt of error theorists is no moral judgments are true. There are no moral facts so certain statements made cannot be true. The third corresponds to the second doubt, “our sincere moral judgments try, but always fail, to describe the moral features of things”. Since there are no moral truths for...

...﻿
Ethics Of….
Boxing is a violent sport full of hate where the only objective is to knock your opponent unconscious. This is a very quick and biased view of boxing because if you study boxing closer it helps teach the person about their moral character. Boxing helps teach people to “get off the canvas and roll with the punches” (Marino, 2010, para 8) and to face their fears, two important lessons to get through life. Throughout the article written by Marino, he educates about Aristotelian ethics and uses boxing as a real-life example. I believe that Marino’s invocation of Aristotelian ethics is well articulated, and I agree with his application through boxing relating it to your life. Aristotelian ethics and boxing can relate to the rights and responsibility lens; boxing can help develop our moral lives and can clearly define and educate people about Aristotle’s definition of courage.
The sport of boxing and comparing it to real-life morals and virtues is extremely well done by Gordon Marino using Aristotelian ethics. The moral virtues that Aristotle preached such as “qualities, temperance, justice, pride, and truthfulness” (Marino, 2010, para. 11) all can be directly applied to Kantian ethics and the rights/responsibility lens (DesJardins, 2012). Boxing is a man versus man, woman versus woman sport which “can compel a person to take a quick self-inventory...

...1. (TCO A) Companies put forth a ________, a set of benefits that they offer to customers to satisfy their needs. (Points : 6)
brand
value proposition
deal
marketing plan
demand
Question 2.2. (TCO A) Samuel Adams trains his company's sales force to go after the consumer. Sam repeatedly asks his team to bear in mind the essential fact that it is the sales team's responsibility to rouse the consumer's interest and make him feel that he needs the product. A true salesman is one who can convert an indifferent consumer walking into the store into a new customer. Sam believes in the ________ concept. (Points : 6)
product
production
selling
marketing
social responsibility
Question 3.3. (TCO A) Which of the following is one of the five major characteristics of good mission statements? (Points : 6)
They focus on a large number of goals.
They expand the range of individual employee discretion.
They define the major competitive spheres within which the company will operate.
They take a short-term view.
They are long and comprehensive to ensure that all critical concepts are included.
Question 4.4. (TCO C) Which of the following statements is true of marketing plans? (Points : 6)
They can be independently developed without worrying about other functional areas.
They provide direction and focus for a brand, product, or...

...﻿BP, COOPERATE REPUTATION AND BUSINESS ETHICS
Introduction
In today’s oil and gas hypercompetitive business environment, social and ethical issues stem from the perception of stakeholders. This is seen in BP’s chain of crisis event. In addition, America’s 16th president Abraham Lincoln illustrated the stakeholder’s perception idea himself in his statement ‘Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail: without it nothing can succeed.’ On April 22, 2010, Green peace claimed that BP committed the greatest environment crime in history due to the Deepwater Horizon blowout crisis (Mason, 2011). In addition to that, other crisis events due to mismanagement of stakeholders and safety issues have cost BP its reputation. The curtail paper focuses on the issues of stakeholder mismanagement and reputation damage as it relates to the case of BP.
Theoretical Background
Corporate stakeholders are individuals or groups who can affect or are affected by a firm’s objectives or policies. They have a ‘stake or vested interest’ in a firm and as a result their management is of key strategic importance to an organization. The underpinning issue of stakeholder management is to deal with conflicting interest between the organization and its stakeholder group (See Appendix 1). Stakeholders trust and perception of a company also defines the reputation of that company (Freeman, 1984; Carroll and...